It’s a little known truth of indie film sets that the “indier” the film, the less likely you’ll be able to tell the cast from the crew when visiting the shoot.

I came to this conclusion covering such low budget, tiny budget and micro-budget productions in multiple states over the years. And I was reminded of it just a few minutes into “Sweet Relief,” a stumbling, amateurish thriller filmed with Amherst, Massachusetts subbing for overgrown, backward BFE Rural America.

No, I didn’t have to read the movie’s Internet Movie Database page to realize whoever shot it (Students? Friends?) spent all of six days filming it.

The casts and crews of such films are inevitably young, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. The actors wear their own clothes, own tattoos and own piercings, and so does the crew, more than a few of whom figure they’re perky and good looking enough to act in movies themselves, and are often right.

But when you see a 20something with lots of ink, a mismatched tank top and cut off jeans and a hat from the horror anthology “VHS” as a character in “Sweet Relief,” you wonder if Adam Michael Kozak was doubling as a grip, setting up lights or reflectors between takes.

There are a couple of decent moments in the third act of this horror thriller, but that’s far too late to do much more than spare it the dreaded “zero stars out of four” rating. The pacing, shot selection, dialogue and plot are clumsy, under-workshopped and nearly unfilmmable. The acting isn’t uniformly bad, but by and large it’s awful enough to wonder if the crew wasn’t shoved in front of the camera because somebody better didn’t show up over those six days.

The score is tonally inappropriate Muzak, so “off” as to make you wonder if they thought any of this was funny.

In an unnamed town where no lawn is mowed, no playground is kept up and no street has a sidewalk, but everybody has Eco Warrior rainwater capturing rain barrels made from recycled plastic (Amherst, LOL) the kids are sharing this social media murder game “Sweet Relief.”

They make a challenge to each other, pointing out someone they’d like to kill or see dead, via cell phone video. The catch is, if they don’t go through with all the promised murders, the Sweet Angel — a dude in a rat or short-eared-bunny mask — will come and do them and all their family in.

Hannah, Lily and Corey (Lucie Rosenfeld, Jocelyn Lopez and Catie Dupont) make such a pact. An “annoying” baby sitter, a boy who jilted one of them and the “c–t mother” of the other seem to be the targets of their pact.

We see that first pointless, pitiless butchery and eventually another killing. But the narrative shifts to Hannah’s frustrated brother (Kozak), his live-in nurse girlfriend (Alisa Leigh), his “crazy” conspiracy theory fan mother (Jane Karakula) and this dopey, Halloween Store-costumed “cop” (B.R. Yeager) and a teen (Gianni Passiglia) he’s trying to impress take over the middle acts.

The cop’s a slob in a corrupt police department, up to no good and always trying to impress his brother officers and Kyle the kid he’s trying to make an informant.

“You shoulda SEEN me in Florida!” should’ve been enough to keep Gerald from getting a job at any other PD in the country. But that’s where law enforcement stands these days.

Social media “murder games” are discussed, murders are carried out, bodies are disposed of, a walk in the woods is interrupted by a swim in the lake (naturally, a woman does this), a witness idiotically confronts a perp and that damned bunny mask wearer is outed. And none of it amounts to anything worth 85 minutes of your time.

With Gerald as an exemplar, it’s no wonder no cop has found a body or sounded the alarm about all this. With soulless kids like this, it’s no wonder a high school science teacher (Paul Lazar) is the biggest conspiracy nut of all. He’s got his reasons.

Writer-director Nick Verdi isn’t quite as green as his surname. Close. He got something titled “Cockazoid” in the can, if not into theaters.

But with a cast like this, who needs a crew? I’ll bet Mr. “VHS” hat has a light meter in his cut-off shorts. If not him, then surely the teen killer girl in shortalls does.

Rating: Unrated, graphic violence, profanity, alcohol abuse, drug content

Cast: Alisa Leigh, B.R. Yeager, Joceyln Lopez, Lucie Rosenfeld, Adam Michael Kozak, Catie Dupont, Gianni Passiglia, Jane Karakula and Paul Lazar.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Nick Verdi. An Art Brut release.

Running time: 1:26

Terrance “T.A.” Dixon, once a hype man to rapper Fat Joe, has sued his former employer for $20 million, making some allegations that might blend right in at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ RICO and sex-trafficking trial.

The federal lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York and reviewed by The Times, alleges that the rapper underpaid Dixon, cut him out of promised pay for contributing to album tracks, defrauded authorities about his income, ditched Dixon in foreign countries without money or transportation home and is running a criminal organization built on intimidation and violence.

The lawsuit alleges that Fat Joe forced the hype man — a sort of backing vocalist who pumps up the audience — into approximately 4,000 sex acts with women in front of him and his crew.

The 54-year-old rapper, born Joseph Antonio Cartagena, is also accused of having sexual relationships with girls who were 15 and 16. The allegations go back to when the rapper was in his late 30s, the lawsuit says. Fat Joe’s song “She’s My Mama,” which has graphically sexual lyrics, was based on what is alleged to have happened with him and one of the girls in real life, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit states that Dixon’s role over about 16 years was more than that of the usual hype man. He “consistently” had duties that included co-writing lyrics, structuring hooks, recording background vocals, performing at more than 200 live shows as Fat Joe’s primary onstage counterpart and managing travel logistics, including equipment transport, security and emergency arrangements. The complaint alleges that Dixon also acted as Joe’s bodyguard and handler during tours.

According to the filing, Dixon wrote or co-wrote tracks including “Congratulations,” “Money Over Bitches,” “Ice Cream,” “Cupcake,” “Blackout,” “Dirty Diana,” “Porn Star,” “Okay Okay,”“No Problems,” a version of “All the Way Up,” “300 Brolic,” “All I Do Is Win (Remix verse),” “Red Café (Remix),” “Winding on Me,” “Cocababy” and “Get It for Life.”

The complaint alleges that Dixon was not properly paid for his efforts, even though he says he was promised certain ownership percentages and documented credit on songs that Fat Joe released commercially. Dixon, who left Fat Joe’s team in 2020, was unable to obtain certain evidence of wrongdoing until a person named as “Accountant Doe” came forward last year with information, the lawsuit says.

Fat Joe “exercised sole control over contracts, budgets, tour management, licensing, and credit attribution and intentionally omitted Plaintiff’s name from liner notes, publishing registrations, and royalty structures, despite Plaintiff’s direct contributions to these works’ creative and commercial success,” the complaint says.

Joe Tacopina, an attorney for Fat Joe, called the lawsuit “a blatant attack of retaliation” and labeled the allegations “complete fabrications” that his client denies in a statement to Variety. Retaliation referred to the slander lawsuit that the rapper filed against Dixon in April after the former hype man accused him on social media of flying a 16-year-old across state lines for sex.

Dixon’s attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, is also representing producer Lil Rod (Rodney Jones) in his $30-million federal lawsuit filed last year against Sean “Diddy” Combs and others in Combs’ orbit, in which Lil Rod alleged sexual harassment and sexual assault. A judge tossed out a majority of Lil Rod’s allegations against Combs in late March.

Both lawsuits include trigger warnings in bright red type ahead of the allegations — something not often seen in such documents.

“Fat Joe is Sean Combs minus the Tusi [pink cocaine],” Blackburn said in a statement to the Independent. “He learned nothing from his 2013 federal conviction,” the attorney added, referencing Fat Joe’s four-month sentence and $15,000 fine in a plea deal for failure to file a tax return in multiple years on more than $3.3 million in income.

In addition to Fat Joe, defendants in the new lawsuit include Peter “Pistol Pete” Torres, Richard “Rich Player” Jospitre, Erica Juliana Moreira and several companies —including Roc Nation — that are affiliated with the rapper. Dixon is asking for a jury trial.

Anyway, coming back to Detective Sherdil, it’s a story revolving around a detective who gets involved in a case involving a billionaire’s (Boman Irani) murder in broad daylight. Suspects are his family, comprising a wife, brother-in-law, daughter and many more.

Detective Sherdil story and review

Detective Sherdil appears to be more intelligent than it really is. A multitude of characters form the cast- Banita Sandhu as Pankaj Bhatti’s daughter Shanti, Diana Penty as Natasha, Chunky Panday as Bodhi Mama, Sumeet Vyas and more give it a proper Knives Out setting, and that’s also my pet peeve with a host of thriller films- they all inevitably end up looking and feeling the same.

Housefull 5- a group of people are investigated for a billionaire’s murder aboard a cruise, Vidya Balan’s Neeyat in 2023, which was again about- you guessed it right- a billionaire’s murder. So then, the only real innovation can happen in the big reveal.

The performances

Diljit’s Detective Sherdil spouts one-liners, comes close to breaking the fourth wall, but there is nothing concrete, really, that he comes up with. If anything, he’s an average detective. He comes up with an analysis of what could have happened at the crime scene and with the different suspects, but none of it is convincing enough. And the done-to-death storyline doesn’t help either. Sagar Bajaj, Ravi Zafar and Ali Abbas Zafar have been credited for the writing.

The runtime is under two hours, so thankfully, it doesn’t get stretched. But the plot development is linear, with a lack of shocking twists. Diljit’s cool dude energy comes off a bit pretentious at times. Diana, as a no-nonsense detective working with Sherdil, is passable.

Boman Irani, as the patriarch, infuses some life into this film. Ratna Pathak Shah, as his cunning wife, is also good. The rest of the cast does their job. Chunky, as Boman’s mysterious brother-in-law, makes his presence felt.

Overall, Detective Sherdil is a glossy but underwhelming murder mystery that tries to wear a smart hat but forgets to fill it with real wit or suspense.